Obama and the Pursuit of Endless War

There's nothing humble about the president's foreign policy.

When historians sit down decades from now to address the events of the early 21st century, they will have no trouble explaining why Americans elected Barack Obama president. They elected him out of a firm conviction that the United States was not involved in enough wars.

Problem solved. Today, American forces are fighting in four different countries.

No. 4 is Yemen, where we learn the administration is carrying out an intense covert campaign against anti-government militants, using fighter aircraft and drone missiles. It is being handled by the Pentagon in conjunction with the CIA, and according to The New York Times, "teams of American military and intelligence operatives have a command post in Sana, the Yemeni capital."

Feel safer? Probably not. Most of what presidents do with the U.S. military is not aimed at enhancing the security or welfare of the American people. It serves mainly to advance our domination of the world, even—or maybe especially—in places irrelevant to any tangible interests. Like Yemen.

Or Libya—also known as War No. 3. Since March, the administration has been immersed in a grand humanitarian mission requiring us to deliver bombs on a regular basis. Obama's stated goal was to prevent a mass slaughter he accused Moammar Gadhafi of plotting. But that pretext has given way to the real purpose: killing the dictator, pounding his regime into submission, or both.

No end is yet in sight, but an optimistic Defense Department official told the Times, "We are steadily but surely eroding his capacity." If that statement is false, we have burned through $700 million on a futile offensive in a country that posed no threat.

But in this case, a pessimist is someone who thinks the optimists are right. If NATO is truly on the way to defeating Gadhafi, we will soon face the question: What next? Having demolished its government, we will suddenly inherit full responsibility for the fate of Libya and its people.

Piece of cake. I mean, look at how well things went in the aftermath of the Iraq invasion, when victory gave way to violent chaos that killed thousands of American soldiers.

Or consider our record in trying to transform Afghanistan. The U.S. has 100,000 troops there, triple the number when Obama took office. Civilian officials and generals invariably assure us that our efforts are succeeding, but never quite well enough to allow our departure.

Despite our vaunted military prowess, generals say the gains are so "fragile and reversible" that we will have to stay for years to come. The Afghan regime is notoriously corrupt, incompetent, and often hostile. But Ryan Crocker, nominated to be ambassador to Afghanistan, holds out the shimmering prospect that we can someday achieve a "good-enough government."

Don't we wish. An assessment released last week by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee—which is controlled by members of Obama's own party—found few encouraging results from our attempts to create a functioning polity and economy. "Insecurity, abject poverty, weak indigenous capacity and widespread corruption create challenges for spending money," the report said.

Foreign assistance, it noted, accounts in one way or another for an astonishing 97 percent of the country's economic activity. Our departure could mean "a severe economic depression."

What's the solution? Don't leave. "Building governance is not something that's going to happen in 18 months," Rajiv Shah, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, told the Voice of America. "And President Obama has said it's a generational effort."

That word "generational"? It's what government officials use when they mean "eternal."

The president doesn't plan for us to be out of Afghanistan until 2014—13 years after we went in. He promised to start withdrawing this summer, but the Pentagon is resisting anything more than a minimal drawdown.

Likewise, despite our alleged success in Iraq, the administration is prepared to keep troops there as well, if the Baghdad government will agree. No worries: Leon Panetta, Obama's incoming defense secretary, says he has "every confidence" that it will.

Given our torrential budget deficits, entering an era of fiscal austerity, how can we afford to fight all these wars? We can't. But we'll do it anyway.

You can stop wondering when the U.S. government will stop sending our battle-weary troops on endless deployments to police the globe. Country singer Blake Shelton laments, "The more I drink, the more I drink." The more we fight, the more we fight.

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Our motive is the same one we’ve used to get us into all the trouble we’ve gotten into in the last 100 years: “The greater good”. The collective. Thinking that a rational motive is required as a causal root to action is very old fashioned, indeed.

Our motive is the same one we’ve used to get us into all the trouble we’ve gotten into in the last 100 years: “The greater good”. The collective. Thinking that a rational motive is required as a causal root to action is very old fashioned, indeed.

The only way to resolve this dilemma of U.S. government politicians, bureaucrats, and other imbeciles’ central planning disasters, including their “security” central planning disasters, is to finally realize the truth that central planning just doesn’t work, including in national “security.”

It is time to recognize that the Anti-Federalists were right, and that federalism doesn’t work. The decentralization of America is as necessary now as was the decentralization of the old Soviet Union.

I wouldn’t say that a federal government is not required. However, a federal government as a means of adjudicating disputes between states (what the federalists wanted) and what we have are two very different things.

In Obama’s defense. The Iraq war is ending. He has no choice but continue to fight in Afghanistan. Does anyone really want the Taliban to set up shop there again claiming triumph over the US? And we have used the chaos in Yemen to whack any number of truly dangerous people.

Libya on the to other hand is being fought so Europe doesn’t have to deal with refugees and Mrs. Sunstein can atone for her sins in Bosnia and Rwanda.

You can’t blame him for trying to win the wars in inherited. You can blame him for fighting a new war that seems to bear no relation to any identifiable US interest.

You can blame him for fighting a new war that seems to bear no relation to any identifiable US interest.

Light, sweet crude is always in our interests. We sure-as-shit can’t let the French have it all. After all, it was the French that was buying up all of Iraq’s oil for a peanut butter sandwich and a diet coke.

Why? Because there’s no one else to sell it to? The Frechies will suck that shit up like a chocolate milkshake, and tell us to go fuck ourselves. Then there’s China, who would be more than happy to take it….umm buy it.

Seriously John, how much longer do you really thing the USD will be the world’s reserve currency, and the only currency used in crude oil transactions? Instaed of planning for the inevitable future, we are trying to fuck everybody that gets in our way.

Aside from the fact I couldn’t care less about UN sanctions, or much else the UN does, agreement.

I note, however, that without the reference to sanctions, the description is also uncomfortably close to describing Saddam Hussein pre-OIF as well. Though we didn’t know he wasn’t building nukes at the time.

You don’t need to tell me about the constant difficulty that continuing to isolate Iraq presented, or reversing long-standing policy in general. However, before we made peace with Gadhafi we’d been at war with him even longer. And if you’ve read the Iraqi Perspectives Report (I suggest you do), Saddam himself couldn’t understand why the U.S. wouldn’t make a deal with him like the one we eventually made with Qadhafi.

Of course, both were often unpredictable psychotics – but that goes with blundering about the Middle East.

In Obama’s defense. The Iraq war is ending. Bullshit. Were that the case, the force reduction would not be continuously delayed and/or minimized.

He has no choice but continue to fight in Afghanistan. Bullshit. He’s the Commander in Chief.

Does anyone really want the Taliban to set up shop there again claiming triumph over the US? Unless we stay forever it’s going to happen anyway. How often does prolonged occupation NOT end with the insurgent forces taking control of the country.

And we have used the chaos in Yemen to whack any number of truly dangerous people. Truly dangerous? Because the government says so to justify killing them? Or because you’re afraid of the scary Muslims?

“Were that the case, the force reduction would not be continuously delayed and/or minimized.”

The forces are going home as planned last I looked.

“Unless we stay forever it’s going to happen anyway. How often does prolonged occupation NOT end with the insurgent forces taking control of the country.”

Almost every time. It is a myth that insurgencies win. The insurgents didn’t win in Vietnam. Vietnam was conquered in 1975 by a conventional Army. The didn’t win in Algeria or Malaysia. Insurgencies rarely win.

And maybe we do have to stay forever. Life is often a set of bad choices. Afghanistan is looking more and more like that all of the time.

“Truly dangerous? Because the government says so to justify killing them? Or because you’re afraid of the scary Muslims?”

Yeah, Al quada are dangerous people. There are numerous thousands of dead people who can attest to that. And like “nazi”, if you resort to the “scary Muslim” trope, you have proven yourself a troll and lost the argument.

“I bet they even voted for The Light-Bringer.” I’ll bet you don’t what the fuck you’re talking about. But since you’re new here, you’re the troll. Little Dickwad Johnny is quite the name caller himself. If you are talking about the sack of shit with big ears….no I didn’t vote for him. Nor insane McCain.

Evidently you are a coward, at least in the reading department. Plenty of intel, even publicly available, that has gone around about how the bad guys can pick a fight, bloody our nose, and run away. Some of that made it into the 9/11 report. Somalia, the African embassies, the first WTC attack, Lebanon, the USS Cole, etc., all provided the bad guys with the knowledge that some of their front-line guys might be killed, but the US would not stand for a drawn-out conflict.

So yeah, the Taliban need to learn that to pick a fight with us means a quick trip over the Hades for all of their assets, front-line and REFM alike. The Germans and Japanese learned it the hard way, and 60-some-odd years later they are still gun shy.

Oh there’s so much I can blame Obama for. Just a short list before work.

1. Though it predictably isn’t being covered in the press, the Obama Administration has been pressing the Iraqis to extend our presence past the deadline. Just so a reduced U.S. force can be caught up in the renewed bloodletting over the local spoils that is likely coming.

2. I can blame him for being a coward who supported an expanded and probably doomed nation-building strategy in Afghanistan that he didn’t believe in just because it was politically easy. There are always alternatives.

3. I can blame him for being stupid enough to use his influence to push out Salih in Yemen, even though for all Salih’s faults, as in Libya we have no idea who’s going to follow him. Just to please the young idiots in his Administration who’ve fallen in love with the nebulous thing known as ‘Arab Spring.’

There was not a single point in the Vietnam war where you could say, afterwards, “We did good up until this point.” It was a losing war right from the beginning for the very same reason the 1775 war was a losing proposition for the British right from the beginning: the locals had everything to gain, nothing to lose, and were, ummm, local.

Thus it is for Afghanistan. Iraq might get a pass, if we had left as soon as Saddam was gone, but we had to act the clown and stick around.

I suppose I will be amazed for the rest of my life at our ability to not learn from our very own history. I attribute it to the control freakery of big government not wanting to admit that big governments don’t work, but it still amazes me every time.

Who cares if some tinpot dictatorship takes over in Afghanistan? If they support terrorists, we can flatten them (the government, that is) in an hour or two and let the next tinpot take his turn. I suspect that won’t happen more than once.

That’s an interesting take, and it even seems reasonable. You might get a break every couple of years, but the downside is that they might get their crap together enough to launch another 9/11 under cover. Which would be bad. Plus, you’d build a lot more local hate than you have today, because all we’d be doing is just sending a ton of folks over to crush the bad guys and damn whatever got in our way. Believe it or not, there are places where we are liked.

It’s a pretty low tech society. It would be tough for a terrorist organization sophisticated enough to do us harm to remain undetected- this isn’t 2000, we have learned a few lessons since then. Chances are that, left alone, there would be some shitbag dictatorship ruling a shitbag society, which would really be of no particular concern of ours. The shitbag dictators would not be terribly interested in being flattened, they’d rather remain live kings of the shit hill. Too bad for the Afghanis, but it’s their country, not ours. If they want it run better, it’s up to them to do it.

You’re missing only one point here: “…to launch another 9/11 under cover.”

America will be attacked again. It’s not an if, but a when. We have sold out so much individual liberty in the hope that extending that “when” beyond whatever current administration is taking away the freedom will last before the next inherits the mess.

The restraint shown by the US government in its response to 9/11 (read: not using our nuclear ordnance against every country harboring terrorists) has damned us to many years and many trillions spent. Our opponents threw a punch and we flinched. Now we pay for it as individuals.

I thought Pakistan was number 3, and Yemen was number 4. That would make Libya number 5. It’s so hard to keep track. Syria will be number 6. And when Saudi Arabia starts selling oil for something other than US Dollars, all bets are off. It’ll be an all out fuck fest.

The level of stupid amongst liberal trolls is a constantly moving and rising target. Every time I think, no liberals can’t be that stupid, you prove me wrong. It is just astounding how shallow and stupid you people are. And the worse things get, the more shallow and more stupid you get.

We are slowly becoming a nation of retarded children. Short buses for everyone!@!

The world is only dangerous because we let them come over here. With a sensible immigration policy, we would not be in any danger at all. Name one power that could cross either the Atlantic or the Pacific and invade the US? There isn’t one. Like you said, they have to sell the oil to someone, they can’t drink it.

IF we get roped into a ground war in Libya and the economy continues to go South, I really wonder if Obama will even run in 2012. If the Dems are facing a massive beating, I could see them going to Obama and getting him not to run. It is not like he even likes the job anyway.

And honestly, if the Republicans are dumb enough to nominate Romney, it would show that they haven’t learned anything since 2008. If I knew the Republicans were going to own a large majority in both houses, I could see myself voting for Hillary over Romney. If the Dems were a small minority in congress and had to give up the black Jesus, they might be chastened enough to listen to some sense.

Cameron has already made statements to the effect that the Brits have to be ready to move troops into Libya “after the fighting is done.” Plus there are reports of Royal Marines maybe being deployed to Yemen.

For me though the nightmare scenario is Pakistan. Too populous and mountainous to occupy and frightening to think of the Pakistani Taliban in control of nukes-no good options.

There is a good chance in four or five years both Pakistan and Iran will be run by Islamic lunatics and have nuclear weapons. Only American liberals (not even the European ones) are dumb enough not to find that prospect pretty chilling.

So after starting 2 or 3 wars and continuing the ones he inherited (and oppossed) how is Obama going to cut spending? With Defense cuts of course!

Not by firing any of the useless 700k civilians in the DOD or cutting big sexy programs like the F-35. Just reduce the number of Soldiers and Marines doing the fighting, their training budgets, and small arms programs. Thanks.

Libertarians, if they could would destroy the military. But they would at least have the sense and decency not to then try to use the military for anything.

Liberals will destroy the military but then still try to use what is left to save the world.

The deficit commission was talking about saving $140 billion over like thirty years by making all retirements not pay until you are 57. No one but a criminal or a retard who could not get a job, would do 20 years if they did that.

Another troll point. Yes, you still smell like a troll. I also think you are alone in your mom’s basement (your dad left after the quasi-feminist harpy drove him out), located in a urban apartment in the projects with a computer and Internet access paid for by the Man.

So far, there’s no proof of that. No grades, nothing published, no progress in any of the “community organizing” projects he worked on, and everything he’s done as an elected official is either a vote as “present”, banal, pre-scripted, or screwed up (the last “or” could also be an “and” depending on the situation).

when obama ran saying he would stop the wars was he lying? if he meant what he said, what did he found out that changed his mind later to the point that he started a new war? and why did he start the new war. my belief is that he wants to prove that bush went the wrong way in establishing democracy in an Islamic nation and he is going to show the right way. that is amazingly narcisstic. the prospect of Iraq becoming stable after the removal of the tyrant seemed more likely than the prospect of stability in Libya after Ghadaffi is gone. nothing about the rebels says that they are capable of making stability, let alone what is called democracy or rule of law. nothing suggests that they will be different from Ghadaffi, except in one regard, they will be even more hostile to us. that seems likely

America will not stop war, there are too many people who depend on it. Even if someone like Ron Paul were voted in with a 70% majority and if he decided to recall all US troops in all countries, what would happen ? He would most likely be exposed in some race or sex scandal, or he will be assassinated.

That’s right. There are three words that tell you why we’re at war: Two Trillion Dollars. Which has moved from taxpayers and lenders into the pockets of corporate interests, and which is then used to maintain control over the executive, congress, and the judiciary. It’s about the money. It’s always been about the money. Oil? We won’t be using oil as fuel before much longer, so that’s not it. 9/11? No. If that were it, we would have attacked the Saudis — most hijackers were Saudi, NONE were Afghan or Iraqi, and the funding was Saudi. But the Saudis are heavily invested in corporate interests, and so… too bad for Iraq and Afghanistan. The American people needed to be fed an excuse for war, and 9/11 being too good to pass up… they just lied. Now we’re spending money (don’t think of it as war) on four active fronts, and the corporate masters are happy. It’s not going to stop. We have zero control.

Four wars? Aren’t you forgetting the “third” war… Pakistan? I’m sure the folks on the ground in Pakistan’s tribal areas feel much the same as the Libyans when the drowns rain rockets down on them. Yemen is the fourth and Libya is the fifth.

It could be said that all these wars are subsets of a larger war on “terror.” People have been asking since 2001 how such a war can possibly ever end or be won, and I still haven’t seen a plausible answer.

The radicalization of Muslims worldwide is a real problem for U.S. security. But getting bogged down in numerous civil wars across the Muslim world can’t be the solution. Not only do we not have the resources to sustain that, but it doesn’t do anything to counter the appeal of salafism to certain people. If anything, it exacerbates the problem.

“Battle-weary troops on endless deployments” is right. I am a junior NCO in the US military deployed to Iraq. My job requires me to travel frequently to a lot of different bases around Iraq, and puts me in contact with a lot of senior officers. I am in civilian attire for this deployment, and I’ve grown my hair and beard out, so most of the officers I am around don’t know I am military, so they speak more freely around me than they normally would if they knew I was so low ranking.

I recently overheard a conversation between an Army colonel and a civilian coworker. The officer was speaking about the politics of our dealings with the Iraqi government, and how they tie our hands so much in the actions we can take when attacked. Then he said: “I just want us to wrap this up and be done with it. I’ve done three tours here already.” Coworker: “You’ve done your time.” Colonel: “And two in Afghanistan. I’m done. I can’t do this anymore.”

I’ve heard a lot of similar comments from a lot of senior people. These wars are creating a generation of professional soldiers, many mid-level members have spent their entire careers in a military at war, and they have lost their marriages and every semblance of a normal life because of it, and they are sick and tired of it, but they stay in because of the job market. There was a lot of disbelief and apprehension when we started bombing Libya, a lot of “oh, no, not another one!” However, a lot of my civilian coworkers, who work desk jobs, and rarely deploy to a dangerous area, feel differently. A previous (civilian) supervisor out here was angry that Saddam “forced us” to invade. I was so angry with him, but he holds attitudes that are very common among civilian DoD employees, but not as common as you might think among active duty military.

Weak unstable governments holding oil. It is in the USA’s best interests to control whatever portion of these countries that we can. If we don’t, then Russia or China will. Isn’t that the point of the past 20 years? First the Cold War is over and then we started the Oil war. When has the USA not been in a war for their interests?